Mafia

Aim: For the innocents to correctly identify the mafia before the mafia kill them

Dramatic licence: Sopranos

How to playAll players are assigned the role of mafia or innocent, apart from one person who is the mayor. To decide roles deal out playing cards (red for innocent, black for mafia, joker for mayor).

There should be twice as many innocents as mafia, or, to make it harder for the mafia, have just two or three mafiosi. All players should sit in sight of each other, so no one can signal behind anyone else's back.

The game has two phases: day and night. Starting with the first night, the mayor tells everyone to close their eyes, before instructing the mafia to open theirs and acknowledge each other. They close their eyes again, and the mayor then tells everyone to open their eyes for the first day.

All players must now ask questions of each other, and debate who they think is acting suspiciously. Before the end of the day, the group, mafia included, must decide on one player to kill (the one they feel is most likely to be mafia). The vote must be unanimous, with the exception of the accused who will be professing his or her innocence. Once dead, their role is revealed, and they are out of the game.

Now night falls again, and all remaining mafia members must choose one innocent to bump off. The mayor makes all players close their eyes and lists the names of all remaining townsfolk (both innocents and mafia) out loud. The mafia must raise their hands when the player they want to bump off is named. Only if all mafia members raise their hands in synch does an innocent die.

The next day phase begins with the murder victim being revealed by the mayor, if there was one. That person is now out, and not permitted to speak.

Throughout the game, mafia know who is who, but innocents don't. Mafiosi must keep their cool, play innocent, and let fellow mafia be killed off to save themselves if necessary.

The game continues with players bumped off by mafia at night and killed by townsfolk by day until either all mafia are killed (innocents win) or mafia outnumber innocents (mafia win).

Top tacticsInnocents can get clues by paying attention to who each murder victim had been accusing. Mafia's inventor, Dimitry Davidoff, says: "To win, one has to become an honest citizen, take responsibility for one's own actions and be proactively good." We say, if you're mafia, get good at lying.

Spice it upGive players multiple lives, or drink with each death to turn it into a drinking game. Time each day phase precisely to force decisions under pressure.

Wink murder

Concentration: 2/5

AKA: Wink Pout Twitch

Aim: To spot any surreptitious winking, pouting or twitching

Dramatic licence: Carry On Screaming

How to playFor a livelier version of the classic wink murder (one murderer, one detective, die when you're winked at) have multiple murderers, each killing in a different way. If your group is large enough, have three: one who kills by winking, another by twitching, and the third by pouting. Since players have to die three times, there are no theatrics so stay in your seat. If the winker kills you, die by raising your right arm, if the twitcher kills you, raise your left arm, and if you get pouted, die by crossing your legs. Anyone who spots a murderer in action can out them to the group, providing they weren't the object of the attack. You could decide on the murderers by picking three bits of paper from a hat, so that one player could, in theory, be all three killers at once.

Live Cluedo

Aim: To kill another member of the party in a predetermined, and often ludicrous, manner

Dramatic licence: Any Agatha Christie film

How to playInspired by the famous (and recently updated) board game, this is great for weekends away with a big group of friends, especially in large spooky country houses. Hard core murder gamers can even make it last a week.

Issue everyone with a murder assignment giving the name of another guest who they must kill in a particular room with a particular implement. For example: Simon, in the bathroom, with a rasher of bacon. You must then find a way of engineering a situation where you and Simon are alone in the bathroom and you have a rasher of bacon secreted about your person. It is up to you how you might carry out the murder.

At the same time as you are trying to kill Simon, someone else will be trying to kill you in the shed with an old bra, so be constantly on your guard.

Prizes to the first successful assassin, last person alive, and most ingenious use of a murder weapon.

Spice it up: Participants could take some interesting photos on their mobile phones to provide evidence of their crimes.